"Generous, de Montemar!" replied Claudine, "How have you been entangled in this engagement! I see your heart, and I urge no more. But forgive me, that I lament such a destiny for such a man? Had all men your honour——"
She interrupted herself with a convulsive sigh, and wringing, rather than pressing the hand she had unconsciously snatched, she parted from him. Louis disbelieved the story of Monsieur de Blaggay's death; but he was affected by the manner of his accomplished informer; and slowly withdrawing through the now almost deserted rooms, mused on the variety of human misery.
CHAP. X.
When that sun arose, which, he believed, was to set on him a completed wretch, he turned from its beams with a loathing sense of what his vain credulity and headlong passion had brought upon him; a joyless youth, an old age of desolation! How different from his home of Lindisfarne! But he could not bear the reflection, and with fevered impatience, he hurried through the business of the morning.
At three o'clock, just as he had shut himself into his study, to brood over his last hours of liberty; and to consecrate them to the unburthening of his full soul to his venerable uncle, in a letter, which, while he wrote, he thought it would be cruelty to send; a billet was brought him from the Empress: it contained these lines:
"A circumstance, which shall be explained hereafter, delays your nuptials. Otteline is gone for a few days to the Luxemburg to join my daughter. Tomorrow, at noon, be in the boudoir, and you will meet Elizabeth."
This was heaven's reprieve to Louis; suspension was life, and with almost hope of some unlooked-for escape, he repaired in the evening to the Chateau de Phaffenberg. His object in visiting that lonely habitation, was to consult papers that remained there, on a dispatch he was making up for Sweden.
While the gorgeous sun-set, by which he had extracted the memorandums, dissolved into a bloomy twilight; and the soft moon was rising in silvering glory over the hills, Louis felt the soothing aspect of nature; and gliding through the garden door, which stood half open, he stood for a moment viewing the scene before him.